Security Systems Move From Protection To Decision Making

Boston's current municipal fire alarm system is older than its famed Fenway Park (built in 1912) ... by 60 years. Twenty years before Alexander Graham Bell would get his patent for the telephone, two part-time inventors in Boston developed a way for citizens to notify fire stations that there was a fire. The technology would spread across the country. I know this because I toured a small, private museum dedicated to alarms and security systems in Lynn, MA. It is located inside of Wayne Alarm Systems, an alarm and monitoring company that primarily serves the Boston area. Its President and founder, Ralph Sevinor started the company in 1972 after a traumatizing, childhood experience of his home being burglarized.

Alarm systems have morphed over the years from just catching those 'bad guys,' or warning about a fire, to management and decision making. The cameras and monitoring systems installed by companies like Wayne Alarm are appearing all over the country. Not only do they protect the properties of their clients, but they also have become the witnesses to other crimes by catching perpetrators who may be passing by. “We got calls right after the Boston Marathon bombings asking us for a list of clients in the downtown area,” Sevinor said. It was from those types of property cameras that we got our first view of the two bombing suspects who would later be captured.

Now, these monitoring systems with their cameras are getting smarter and new applications are going to push technology envelope further. Beyond capturing an image, the camera is now interpreting what it sees. Through software applications, those images can be converted into actionable reports for management of businesses. As Sevinor told me, "These applications are moving what we have traditionally called 'security systems' to management tools."

Visual recognition systems can monitor everything from the duration of time that a person is spending in one area to how long a package has been sitting unattended. While security applications come to mind, just think of the marketing and management applications. "Management can now look at reports that can describe buyer habits, aid in staffing at peek hours and monitor customer service," Sevinor said.

There have been reported cases of gas stations using a camera focused on nearby competitors so that they can react to any price changes. One could see hedge funds or sell-side firms placing cameras outside of warehouses to count shipments in real time in lieu of paying someone to stand out there with a clipboard. One company, Genscape, uses high-tech monitoring equipment and its own algorithms to gather information on oil supplies. They then sell that information to banks, hedge funds and oil traders who are looking for more than scheduled oil production reports. Even Disney is getting in on the technology trend. It recently announced a new system that tracks every person entering their parks ... as if they did not know enough about us.

With all of this technology comes a possible national security issue. Most of the video equipment used is manufactured outside of the U.S. while much of the software to drive it is developed in the U.S. Chinese company Hikvision is emerging as the dominant manufacturer of video surveillance equipment. Recently, there have been reports of concern about Hikvisions' ownership by the Chinese government and that some of their executives also hold position's in the government.

There is also concern of hackers gaining control of the software and, therefore, control of the camera. In the U.K., a story by the Daily Mail told of how cameras were hacked to reveal private photos/video of residence in their own homes that were broadcast over the web. Sevinor acknowledged that the security industry, like most industries, use the Internet as their backbone for transmitting information. "We see our business moving toward cyber-security as a result," he said.

We are all losing our privacy and security cameras have played a role in that. According to a recent study, the average American is caught on video approximately 75 times each day ... 75 TIMES! "It is something that we have had to get used to," Sevinor said, "but we [society] seems to be accepting it more."

Behave, someone is watching.

I established 500 Pearl Street Speakers as a boutique speaker bureau that brings together journalists, former law enforcement agents, forensic accountants, lawyers and those involved in white collar crimes to create memorable training events. When I'm not speaking or writing...